T-Bone Walker
by Don Erickson
Robert Johnson and T-Bone Walker are perhaps the most influential
artists in the history of Blues music. After listening to these two
performers, you might be quite surprised that they shared common
influences themselves. The recordings of Lonnie Johnson and the duo of
Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell had a profound effect on both men.
After being exposed to these recordings, Robert Johnson took the Delta
Blues of Charley Patton and Son House to a new and exciting level of
sophistication. As for T-Bone Walker, his first two recordings, in 1929
as Oak Cliff T-Bone, featured a vocal that borrowed heavily from Leroy
Carr. In addition, Lonnie Johnson's innovative use of the guitar as a
lead instrument inspired T-Bone greatly.
T-Bone was born Aaron Thibeaux Walker on May 28, 1910 in Linden, Texas.
He grew up in an area of Dallas called Oak Cliff. (The same community
that spawned Stevie Ray Vaughn...must be something in the air down
there!) T-Bone benefitted from being in a family of musicians, and as a
seven-year-old was leading the great singer/guitarist Blind Lemon
Jefferson along the streets and train tracks of Dallas.
He learned to play the mandolin, guitar and banjo. By the mid-Twenties
he was playing in Ma Rainey's carnival shows and later with the
travelling troupe of Ida Cox.
Sometime in the 1930's he shared the same guitar teacher with jazz
legend Charlie Christian. Both Walker and Christian were among the very
first people to play an electrified guitar.
T-Bone moved to L.A. and his horn-like guitar lines and acrobatic stage
moves caught the attention of bandleader Les Hite, who hired him in
1939. T-Bone finally recorded again in 1940 as Hite's featured vocalist;
by now T-Bone's voice becoming more assured and relaxed.
It wasn't until 1942, however, that his electric guitar was first
recorded, this time with piano man Freddie Slack. Walker's recordings
throughout the '40s helped popularize a style of Blues that incorporated
jazz and swing, and became known as the "West Coast Sound." In
1947 he recorded his song "Call It Stormy Monday," which
became a huge hit and cemented his place in Blues history.
Despite battling severe stomach ulcers, he continued to perform and
record many great sides through the '50s. He remained intermittently
active until his death in 1975. There was an immense turnout for his
funeral in Los Angeles.
If you have any doubt of T-Bone's impact on Blues and Rock & Roll,
check out what three living legends have said about him: John Lee Hooker
- "He was the first man that made the electric guitar
popular." B.B. King - "He had a touch that nobody has been
able to duplicate. He made me so that I knew I just had to go out and
get an electric guitar. Without T-Bone, there would be no B.B."
Chuck Berry - "T-Bone's the greatest musician who ever lived. All
the things you see me do on stage, I got that from T-Bone." Any of
his works from the '40s and '50s are essential listening.
Aaron Thibeaux Walker (1910-1975), the Father of Electric Blues Guitar.
Reprinted with permission from the June 1996 issue of the Blues Crier
